Ragged Robin

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Title:     Ragged Robin
Author: Laura E. Richards [More Titles by Richards]

O Robin, ragged Robin,
That stands beside the door,
The sweetheart of the country child,
The flower of the poor,

I love to see your cheery face,
Your straggling bravery;
Than many a stately garden bloom
You're dearer far to me.

For you it needs no sheltered nook,
No well-kept flower-bed;
By cottage porch, by roadside ditch,
You raise your honest head.

The small hedge-sparrow knows you well,
The blackbird is your friend;
With clustering bees and butterflies
Your pink-fringed blossoms bend.

O Robin, ragged Robin,
The dearest flower that grows,
Why don't you patch your tattered cloak?
Why don't you mend your hose?

Would you not like to prank it there
Within the border bright,
Among the roses and the pinks,
A courtly dame's delight?

"Ah no!" says jolly Robin,
"'T would never do for me;
The friend of bird and butterfly,
Like them I must be free.

"The garden is for stately folk,
The lily and the rose;
They'd scorn my coat of ragged pink,
Would flout my broken hose.

"Then let me bloom in wayside ditch,
And by the cottage door,
The sweetheart of the country child,
The flower of the poor."

[The end]
Laura E. Richards's poem: Ragged Robin

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